Seminar May 20: M. Scalisi

On May 20 we will have a seminar by

Marco Scalisi (MPI München)

Title: The Gravitino and the Swampland

Abstract: We propose a new swampland conjecture stating that the limit of vanishing gravitino mass corresponds to the massless limit of an infinite tower of states and to the consequent breakdown of the effective field theory. We test our proposal in large classes of models coming from compactification of string theory to four dimensions, where we identify the Kaluza-Klein nature of the tower of states becoming light. We point out a general relation between the gravitino mass and abelian gauge coupling in models with extended supersymmetry, which can survive also in examples with minimal supersymmetry. This allows us to connect our conjecture to other well established swampland conjectures, such as the weak gravity conjecture or the absence of global symmetries in quantum gravity. We discuss phenomenological implications of our conjecture in (quasi-)de Sitter backgrounds and extract a lower bound for the gravitino mass in terms of the Hubble parameter.

Meeting information:
20th of May 14:30 Italian Time
Zoom Meeting https://l.infn.it/stringwebseminar

Seminar May 6: F.Apruzzi

On May 6 we will have a seminar by

Fabio Apruzzi (University of Oxford)

Title: Holography, 1-Form Symmetries and Confinement

Abstract: I will discuss confinement in 4d N = 1 SU(N) Super-Yang Mills (SYM) from holography, focusing on the 1-form symmetry and the holographic realization in terms of the Klebanov-Strassler solution. I will show how from the 5d consistent truncation it is possible to identify the topological couplings that determine the 1-form symmetry (and thus global forms of the gauge group) and its ’t Hooft anomalies. One of the topological couplings corresponds to a mixed 0-1-form symmetry anomaly, which is related to chiral symmetry breaking in the infrared (IR) vacuum. I will also show how to derive this anomaly from the Maldacena-Nunez solution and Little String Theory realizations of pure SYM. I will then discuss how other couplings in the 5d supergravity description of the IR Klebanov-Strassler solution lead to a 4d Topological Field Theory (TQFT) in the boundary, which saturates the mixed anomaly. 

Meeting information:
6th of May 14:30 Italian Time
Zoom Meeting https://l.infn.it/stringwebseminar

Slides are available at
https://pandora.infn.it/public/348d2f